Kaiser to build $68M Moanalua expansion

By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Staff Writer

Kaiser Permanente Hawaii hopes to have a new $68 million expansion and renovation of its Moanalua Medical Center complete by 2009, company officials said yesterday.

When finished, the facility, including a new five-story tower adding 176,000 square feet to the center, will function as Kaiser's only inpatient hospital in the state. Current out-patient services at Moanalua will be moved to a new facility in nearby Mapunapuna, company officials said.

The state Health Planning and Development Agency last month approved the expansion plan, which is needed to meet a growing membership and demand for services, said Scott Nariyoshi, community relations and communications director of Kaiser Permanente Hawaii.

"We're already finding periods of time when we don't have enough beds available for our members and have to send them to other hospitals," Nariyoshi said. "We're bursting at the seams and taking action to meet a pent-up demand, but we're also planning forward for the next 10 years."

Construction on the new tower is expected to begin in May and be complete by 2009, Nariyoshi said. The addition, to be near the site of the current facility's emergency room, will include 68 new beds, eight operating rooms, six emergency rooms and five urgent-care spaces. The hospital will have a total of 318 beds when the project is done.

Kaiser also plans to renovate the existing 95,000 square feet of the Moanalua facility, the first major work on the facility in almost 20 years. Services in the current facility will continue through the construction, Nariyoshi said.

Kaiser is the second largest healthcare provider in the state, with more than 230,000 members, more than double the number the Moanalua facility was originally designed to serve when it was completed in 1985, Nariyoshi said. The company said in its state filing that it expects to have a membership of 319,000 by 2016.

"Things have really changed from when the original building was completed, especially hospital designs and technology," Nariyoshi said. "We've actually been planning this expansion since the late 1990s, but it was delayed several times, creating even a bigger need for it."

With the expansion, Kaiser said the Moanalua facility plans to add about 200 staff members, not including physicians.

Kaiser has begun converting the recently purchased Ceridian Building on Pa'a Street in Mapunapuna into a new clinic. Most of the out-patient services housed in Moanalua will be moved to that clinic before construction is finished in 2009, Nariyoshi said.

In July, Kaiser filed a request for an 11 percent rate increase with the state Insurance Division, which has yet to rule on the request. The costs of the Moana-lua project were factored into that rate increase request, Nariyoshi said.

Reach Mike Leidemann at 525-5460 or mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com